1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to data storage and retrieval systems and, more particularly, to organization of access to data in data storage systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent advances in the ability to multi-task a computing system have brought with them tremendous flexibility in the parallel performance of computing tasks. In addition to allowing a single user to run multiple simultaneous tasks, recent advances in multi-tasking allow multiple users to execute multiple tasks in parallel.
These same advances, however, have created unique problems in conflict management. Where multiple users are simultaneously reading and writing files, conflicts may exist as to who may view or write to a file. In some situations, the need to protect a file being written by a process handled by a first user from viewing by a process being run by a second user may present legal implications regarding the proliferation of information. Further, the prior art provides no adequate means for resolving conflicts in situations in which multiple processes running on the same system and sharing a storage device need to simultaneously access different versions of the same file.